Hershey Medical Center earns HAP achievement award
Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center’s efforts to prevent workplace violence have been recognized by an achievement award from the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP).
The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center earned an Optimal Operations Achievement Award for developing and launching a Behavioral De-Escalation Response Team. The team, which formed in January 2019, includes nursing leadership, security, nursing resource coordinators and pastoral services. It is activated when a staff member identifies a patient or family member who is potentially at risk of harming other people. From there, the response team and staff involved in the situation meet, and develop and implement a de-escalation plan. The plan often includes identifying specific ways to engage the individual in question and steps for frontline staff to follow when providing care.
Entries were evaluated by a panel of 16 judges representing the public and private sectors, business organizations, consumer groups and renowned health care quality institutes.
In all, HAP selected 14 award recipients from 127 submissions, honoring them for exceptional work and innovation in community health projects, quality improvement efforts, and operational efficiencies.
Winners were recognized at an award ceremony on May 23 during HAP’s annual Leadership Summit.
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